What is Love and Meeting Lying on the bed on a sunny afternoon, looking out through lace curtained windows at the play of sunlight and shadow on the yellow golden leaves of the Golden Elm, moving in the strong breeze. Filigrees of light and shadow moving on the window-frame. Around me in different poses of … Continue reading What is Love & Meeting
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To Hope against Hope
Its been like winter here for the last few days; cold, wet, windy. Fitting then that I recall here, in relation to ‘Hope’ or its dangers, the mid-Victorian English poet Thomas Hardy’s response to the dying days of the 19th century and the turning of the 20th. His poem, ‘The Darkling Thrush’ I will quote … Continue reading To Hope against Hope
Suffering and its Antidote: Proximity
What is it, this intense distress in seeing the suffering of one’s fellow creatures? And why not the same for humankind? Jesus said when reprimanding his disciples outraged by a woman pouring expensive oil over his head whilst suggesting that it could have been sold ‘to feed the poor’: “Leave her alone. Why trouble you … Continue reading Suffering and its Antidote: Proximity
In My Beginning IS My End: 2
The tide is retreating. What once was a strong incoming force, shaping and being shaped in turn, is waning. Past, long past, the high-water mark, now only flotsam and jetsam to mark its passing; a moment, less, in the vast eons of time since the world began, and man, so recently in geological terms, slid … Continue reading In My Beginning IS My End: 2
The Meeting Place
The Meeting Place (the land between the two seas) Searching for a ‘place’ where one may really meet other than self has led me to the conclusion that - for such a place to exist – one must first create it in one-self. However, before one begins on such an enterprise it is vital to … Continue reading The Meeting Place
Moving Towards Manifestation 2
‘Al Musawwir’ The ‘Flawless’ Shaper of Forms The final point, even if only for a moment, as the – as yet – ‘unformed’ moves towards form, the final act in this ‘shaping’ process. There are many things that contribute to this ‘final-shape’ which impede any sense of “flawlessness” in that which is created, and it … Continue reading Moving Towards Manifestation 2
In My Beginning is My End
What is that place, between sleeping, dreaming, and awakening, that is beyond sleep, beyond the play of mind in dreams, beneath pain, that is still, and yet …watching? * Some years ago now, a school-days friend, Paul, who used to live just up the road from me, back then, said something similar to T S … Continue reading In My Beginning is My End
Moving Toward Manifestation: The Impossibility of Perfection
It is said that ‘the past is gone, and the future, a lie yet to be born’! What is it, then, this search for ‘perfectibility,’ if not a ‘lie’ in the making? According to Islam only Allah is perfect, and ‘nothing can be compared to Him’ (surah 112:4, Al Ikhlas). It is this surah that … Continue reading Moving Toward Manifestation: The Impossibility of Perfection
When the Singer is the Song
Who am I when the singer and the song are one? She asked: “Do you love me or yourself more? Really, tell the absolute truth.” He says: “There’s nothing left of me. I’m like a ruby held up to the sunrise. Is it still a stone, or a world Made … Continue reading When the Singer is the Song
Sufi’s and Nomads
‘Siyaha’ or ‘Safar’ - Wandering in search of the Beloved According to a paper by Arin Salamah Qudsi (“Crossing the Desert: Siyaha, and Safar as key concepts in early Sufi Literature and Life”), these two terms both refer to ‘travelling’ in early Sufism, however, only the first of them, siyaha (which relates to the ‘science … Continue reading Sufi’s and Nomads
Tracks in a Pathless Land 